Necessary Evils
by MissMelysse
Summary: "The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - Oneshot. Crushverse. Takes place during chapter 20 of Crush III: Sostenuto (Data/Zoe). Data's reflections on the acts he must commit during his final encounter with Lore.


**Necessary Evils **

_**(Continuity Note: **__This one-shot runs concurrently with chapter 20  
("Noel, Part II") of __Crush III: Sostenuto__. )_

_"The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn_

**Part I: Geordi**

His colleagues – his friends – the people Zoe refers to as his chosen family – are in a holding cell that he helped bustle them into, and even though he can see the greatest disappointment on Captain Picard's face, Data knows the deepest hurt is felt by his best friend.

The counselor points out that she's only sensing negative emotions from him, which he knows, because those are the ones he's not filtering out. Those are the ones Lore has to believe are controlling him.

But that control is becoming more and more difficult to maintain.

"Data, just because you haven't experienced certain emotions doesn't mean they don't exist. Lore is only feeding you the negative ones," the engineer points out.

"Counselor Troi told me herself that feelings are not negative or positive. It is how we act on them that makes them good or bad," he says. Using the empath's own words against her seems unfair somehow, but if he wishes these people to believe he has turned, there is no alternative.

The conversation continues, and with each statement in support of his brother's plans, Data feels as though a part of himself is being erased, as if his brother's code isn't just overwhelming him with emotions, but overwriting him, as well.

Days later, the engineer is no longer in possession of the VISOR that allows him to see. He is no longer in the cell with the others but is strapped to a metal table in Lore's laboratory – a space that is the very antitheses of his own lab on the _Enterprise_.

Lore's workroom is sterile. Minimalistic. Not even a chair exists, for androids do not _need_ to sit. By contrast, Data's space is accessible to all, and even holds a couch and coffee table for when those assisting him, or, in the case of Zoe, observing him, can rest in comfort if they so desire.

Desire… that emotion, he now knows for sure, was _not_ generated by the chip Lore stole. It is truly his. And that helps him buffer the other emotions, send them to a file where he can purge them later. It's the difference in the flavor that helps him sort the source. Love… that is the other that is wholly his.

Lust, though, anger, hatred, and guilt… those are being generated outside of his own neural net and fed to him in random patterns.

Knowing Lore was watching him interact with his captain and colleagues, Data had insisted he was no longer their puppet, but the reality is that Lore doesn't want a partner, he wants a puppet of his own.

He leaves the room, using the time to check on Zoe – she is understandably concerned about him - then returns, and presses the button that will raise the table to an optimal working height.

"Data?" the trapped man asks. "Who's there?"

With his ethical subroutine suppressed it is surprisingly easy for the android to mimic their captain's voice. "Geordi… "

It works. "Captain?"

"Shh," Data says in Picard's voice, and then he throws in a contraction for effect. "We're getting out of here."

"Come on, hurry. Data was just here. I think he went to get something."

The hope in his friend's voice… his former friend, that is… makes him feel uneasy. An emotion _not_ provided by the stolen chip and Lore's transmissions. He forces the feeling down, focuses on completing the task he was assigned.

"Too late," he says. "My brother suggested I try to develop my sense of humor. What do you think?"

La Forge manages a deadpan tone. "I think it needs a little work."

But Data can sense his rapid heartbeat and see the tiny beads of sweat on his dark skin. His former colleague is afraid. Afraid of him. Lore's emotional push would wish him to revel in that fear. But he does not. He does not wish to harm his friend. He does not wish to install the nano-cortical fibers into the other man's brain.

But he does it anyway.

The betrayal is complete.

Even if he had a plan - and he _is_ trying to formulate one, but the constant emotional onslaught has greatly reduced his processing power – there is no way Geordi would cooperate now.

And so, he continues.

The engineer reminds him of their trip to Devala Lake, the one where he left the boat to give Geordi and is local paramour time alone.

Data wavers.

He cannot let Lore know too soon that the older android is not, in fact, completely controlling him, but he cannot take the next step which would cause Geordi irreversible brain damage.

"Data," Geordi says, "if you ever go back to the way you were, you might not be able to forgive yourself for what you're about to do."

And the engineer is correct, more so than he knows, for Data has already moved past the ability to forgive himself.

He lies to his friend: "I am getting some anomalous readings from your neural net. I will need to do further testing before I proceed. Someone will come and take you back to your cell."

Data leaves the lab, uncertain where to go, what to do. And then he realizes… Zoe still has a comm-badge.

**(=A=)**

**Part II: Lore **

Life with Lore is a precarious exercise, much like walking a tightrope, Data thinks. One moment the older android is all charm and frivolity, the next he is a malevolent dictator with delusions of taking over the entire Federation with his army of broken Borg.

Ironically, his relationship with Zoe is helping him keep up with his brother's frequent changes in mood and manner. His human fiancée also tends to shift between moods, but in her the alterations are never malicious, they are simply a quirk of her personality, and, he suspects, part of what makes her so talented on stage. Failure to keep up with the woman he loves never leads to anything more than a conversation to sort things out.

But Lore… failing to keep up with him is dangerous, and potentially lethal.

The constant mental assault he is receiving from the chip that was initially meant for him is causing him to struggle in more ways than one.

He knows, intellectually, that what Lore is doing is wrong. Torture. Murder. These are not things Data is programmed to accept. Beyond programming, he finds them morally offensive. Zoe has insisted that he does not _need_ his ethical programming to understand these things, but the truth is deeper than that.

The ethical programming is not analogous to a conscience; it is more of a safety net preventing him from committing acts that he may not recover from.

Like killing Lore.

Ridding the galaxy of the twisted android is something Data understands to be necessary, but even necessary acts are still betrayals. And in this case, he would be betraying not only his father, but the one who calls him "brother," as well.

The emotional shifts he must allow himself to experience, while much less than what Lore is actually sending thanks to his ability to buffer the bulk of them, are weakening his resolve.

And yet…

Data does not agree that his quest for humanity is mistaken.

Data does not agree that purely synthetic life is the future of the universe. He truly embraces the Vulcan concept of IDIC – Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. Surely that diversity includes organics and synthetics living in harmony.

And so, he lies – something he has never been good at – to the one technical family member he has. He pretends to go along with Lore's wishes, finding solace only when he is with Zoe in their gilded cage (for it is no less a prison cell than that which holds his colleagues, it simply has better amenities).

He allows some of the emotions to seep through the buffer, feeling guilt and hatred, lust and fear and anger.

But he is angry with Lore, not Starfleet.

And he is angry with himself for allowing this to go on so long, hoping his "final solution" would not have to be used.

It is only after the captain steals the transceiver part from a Borg guard, only after he realizes that Zoe's hidden comm-badge (Lore never did a pat-down, merely assumed she had none) that an opening is there.

And Data walks through it, risking his fiancée's life in order to take the killing shot, because there is no other option, no other choice.

Lore must be stopped and killing him is the only guarantee that he will never be reactivated.

He fires.

Zoe falls.

He takes a split second to see that she is alive, calls the Counselor to stay with her, and runs after Lore.

It is fitting, Data thinks, that they are in the laboratory. He lifts his weapon, takes aim again. Calls his brother's name, "Lore."

"You should be careful with that, brother. Somebody could get hurt." But he does not seem to believe that Data will actually shoot him. Again. And he turns back to the computer panel on the wall.

"What are you doing?" Data asks. Perhaps the other android is planning to raze the building with everyone left inside it, burying them all alive.

But that is not the plan. "I've got a way out of here. I'm willing to forget about what happened back there and take you with me. We don't need anyone else. We're brothers. I'll give you the chip our father made. It contains much more than just emotions. It has memories. Memories our father wanted you to have."

"I cannot allow that – " A flood of emotion runs through him. Hate. Anger. He turns them around and spits out the truth. "We are not brothers. We are simply products of the same creator." Geordi's words about not being able to forgive himself for the things he has done echo in his memory, but his hand is steady, and he fires.

Lore collapses, hitting the ground with a solid thud, and somewhere inside himself, Data feels satisfaction. He hovers over the black-clad android's largely inert form and presses a panel on his head. "I must deactivate you now."

"Without me, you'll never feel emotion again," Lore says.

They both know that his statement is inaccurate. Data has already acquired some emotion without the other's interference. He assumes his growth will only continue. Still, he soft-pedals his response. "Perhaps. But you leave me no other choice."

Lore's golden eyes fade to dullness, but he manages one more sentence. "I love you, brother."

But Data does not feel love for this man who has hurt so many. He responds with only one word: "Goodbye."

**(=A=)**

**Part III: Zoe **

When Data used the "Vulcan Nerve Pinch" to render his partner unconscious, he believed it to be the proper course of action. She was a civilian, untrained in any combat skills, and had shown a marked distaste for weapons.

He knew it would affect their relationship, but he believed he could make her understand that he had intended the action to keep her safe.

When Crosis had overruled him and beamed her onto the stolen shuttle, he was both relieved – they _did_ handle things better as a team – and fearful (though the fear was mostly (partly) created by the emotions he was being force-fed. Lore had kidnapped her twice, assaulted her, raped her… and now he was escorting her to his side.

He would not have been surprised if she couldn't forgive him.

He _was_ surprised by how calmly she handled their situation, at how her biggest concern was for him.

She listened as he confessed his fear, his guilt, his anger, and assured him he was not to blame. "Maybe it's time you stop protecting me," she said in the darkness of the shuttle. And when he shared that he planned to kill Lore, she'd been troubled by the thought. "I don't want you to be a killer."

As they spend days in Lore's presence, Data has time to reflect on how his girlfriend – his fiancée – has changed in the two years of their romantic engagement. He knows she is terrified, but she presents a calm – even snarky – front, and he sees the other truth: that her attraction to him is not because he is safe. It is because she truly sees him. The whole person.

And he loves her more because of it.

And feels even more guilty.

Because once again, Zoe comes out of an encounter with Lore with emotional scars and physical injuries.

And once again, it is his fault.

He took the shot that made her fall.

He failed to find Lore earlier.

He had not killed Lore after his initial meeting with the older android, merely beamed him into space. A passive act. Indecisive. Hedging.

"I don't want you to be a killer," her words repeat over and over in his memory, but in his unwillingness to kill, years earlier, he has caused this entire course of events.

But Zoe refuses to let him accept all the blame.

"I followed him, the first time," she points out, even confessing, "I came this close to asking to go with him… I was so angry with you…"

"You were young," he responds, because he knows that just-turned-sixteen Zoe had just lost her first lover to the shuffle of assignments after the Battle of Wolf 359. "And ultimately, you did not ask."

"I didn't stop him on the Starbase. I could have raised holy hell…"

"And you likely would have come to greater harm," he refutes.

They do not speak of the lust he displayed just days before the shuttle trip. They do not speak of the fact that he marked her with a bruise (she calls it a hickey). He is aware that the topic is not dead, merely tabled… but he is not sure he has been honest with her, or himself.

And that, too, is a betrayal.

Because Zoe has never asked him to be anything but himself. And she deserves his true self. Even if he is no longer entirely certain of what that is.

She soothes him, while they are imprisoned in Lore's domain. She does not judge him for the necessary evils he must commit in order to buy time, formulate a plan, find an opening in which to use it.

And then lust happens again, and instead of refusing him, she simple accepts that some situations call for difficult tasks, like engaging in sexual intimacy while Lore may be watching. "We'll be discreet," she says. "Tame even. He'll be bored out of his mind at how vanilla we'll be."

Data is still reluctant. He does not want her to feel as though _he_ is raping her. But he cannot ease the lust, and if he tried to claw his way out of their room it would damage him more than the walls.

"I cannot ask this of you."

"You're not asking, love. I'm offering," Zoe points out. "It's New Year's Eve. Let this be for us, Data. He may be the catalyst but he's not the final product. It's you and it's me, and it's our night. Let's not let him steal it from us."

And so, they make love under the cover of darkness and under the blankets, and they are tame, for them, but it resolves the lust coursing through his brain, and it renews their connection.

By morning, Data's resolve is back in place.

When it is all over, Zoe is broken. Days in sickbay, a cast and crutches – rarely used in modern times but designed to keep her from pushing her recovery too hard – and there is a quietness about her that is, Data thinks, akin to the brooding she often accuses him of doing.

He wants to hold her and caress all the fear and pain and worry away.

He is leery about touching her before she requests it.

And the desire… the 'organic' desire that began months before… is still there, waiting.

When they meet with Captain Louvois and Captain Picard to discuss Lore's future… and his own… Zoe supports his decision for permanent deactivation and disintegration.

When she asks for time alone with Lore's body and a sonic sledgehammer, he realizes that she is not truly joking. When she offers to commit the final act herself, he realizes that she meant it when she said it was time to protect each other. Data wishes she had not insisted on being with him when he turns Lore to dust, but he cannot refuse the request.

She holds his hand the whole way to his lab, and the way back to their quarters, and he is grateful for the contact.

When Zoe invites Geordi to join them on their vacation to Centaurus, he understands that she does so to give them a buffer.

And when she accepts guardianship of the chip – _the chip – _that had been meant for him in the first place, Data recognizes a greater betrayal about to happen. Being with him is a risk, and while he does not wish to live his life without her, he must give her the choice – the option – to back out of their engagement.

Suggesting this will not be easy. Logically he should want her to walk away, into a future that is safe, but in truth he hopes she refuses.

But he must ask.

It is a necessary evil.

* * *

**Notes: **Some dialogue is lifted from "Descent, Part I" and "Descent, Part II, though it may be altered." Some is lifted from chapter twenty ("Noel, Part II") of _Crush III: Sostenuto. _If you haven't read it yet, do check out my (m-rated) Lore one-shot "Deadly Virtues," published November 13, 2019. Zoe's reaction to Data's offer is mentioned in the one-shot "Amazing," which is mostly about Geordi, Caroline, and Bertha the Truck, and will be explored in detail in chapter twenty-one.


End file.
